A Debt To Be Paid
by AlbtraumDerAngst
Summary: The notion to take so many youkai into one's own body without repercussion is foolish at best. The void acted as a barrier between monster and man, but without it where do the monsters hide?
A/N: This is my first foray into doing a piece of fanfiction, so keep that in mind if my characterization or knowledge of the setting is not up to standard.

This is more of a concept piece than anything, I might expand on it more if people like the idea of it or it might just stay its own standalone open ended typing of thing. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

What a sight to behold.

A ragged monk alone in the forest with blood gushing from his arm, and the only offender to his life was himself. His shouts of pain had brought a farmer, rather two, who had been tending to their crops in the early morning, and what they saw was like nothing their eyes had ever seen.

—

His eyes filled with hysteria, his knees hit the forest floor once sapped of all energy. The monk understood demons, they were tangible, had weaknesses; how does a human conquer ones of a metaphorical nature?

It was the seventh straight night his fears brought him to the wilderness, but to what end did it accomplish? His wife, his soulmate, did her best to ease him from his panic stricken states. However she was very heavy with his child, their first child, and a mother doesn't need to see the father of her children so filled with weakness. At least, that's what his pride told him.

The voices, they spoke to him, as soon as his body lay down on their marital bedding. His hand, once consumed with a curse, convulsed involuntarily and his forehead beaded with sweat.

—

The first time it happened, he left it unnoticed, a nuisance at most. A second time, brought cause for him to learn a new sleeping position. The third night made fear clutch at his heart, and in turn clutch his wife in heated fervor to dispel the voices and anxiety.

Fourth is a blur, he really doesn't remember it, other than waking up that morning with salted trails of tears down his face and his wife looking into his eyes with her own fear. Something he promised to never make her feel again for the rest of her days.

Beginning two nights ago he would run, using his other arm to hold the convulsing one in place. Lately he'd been catching himself gripping his shakujo, or one of his wife's old demon slaying blades, and holding it close to his neck without realizing it. The previous two nights he left all forms of weaponry home, but tonight he did not.

The voices of his demons chided and tormented him from dark till daylight, hundreds of voices that he began to recognize from his past.

—

Satisfied that he would be difficult to find now, even with that nose of his friend hot on his trail, his fingernails dug into flesh.

Initially, as a human is to do, he flinched at the red hot pain of his nails peeling at the first layers of his skin. He couldn't stop, he had to continue, until his mind was met with silence once more.

They were trapped within, and he needed to free them. He never imagined all these years they were being trapped inside his body.

Once the blood started trickling free his body started pumping out adrenaline and he mistook the euphoria as a release of the demons from within his arms. For just a moment, the blink of an eye, he felt at peace.

 _"More than a few drops of blood are needed to atone for our lives that you stole, void bearer."_

There was that voice, one of the loudest ones, ringing in his ears once again. Panic hit his heart once more, and that was when he reached for the knife under his robes.

The first cut was gentle, as one would experience when turning the page of a text. The second went deeper, much deeper, slicing past his nerve endings and puncturing a vessel. Blood spurted forth and he felt the euphoria once more, and now he understood what he must do.

The sharp side of the blade rested at the joint of his wrist, both arms trembling for entirely separate reasons. They yell, they squall, they plea to retain their hold on his being. As the knife began to pierce the skin a wash of pain swept over his being and his arm began to convulse. Within seconds he flipped on his back and writhed in pain. It was a searing agony that made the miasma that was once within his body seem pathetic.

His right arm flailed about, digging his nails deep into the dirt. A sheen of sweat poured down his forehead as he yelled in misery.

Just as suddenly as it started it also ended, the difference was so immense that he couldn't even feel his right arm at all anymore.

Wait, there was something about that that didn't feel right.

Using his left arm he pushed himself up enough to at his other arm, though the darkness made it difficult it appeared it would soon be dawn. Had he truly been out for so long? He fretted for Sango who would wake to find him missing for a third morning in a row, not knowing if her husband was to return.

Looking down he did not see the arm of a man, not even the arm of a youkai. It was the limb of a monster. Sharp, pointed black nails now jutted from the tips of his -it's- fingers and curled into weapons for rending flesh. There was no mortal skin to speak of, instead the texture of his arm alternated all the way up until the beginning of his shoulder. From hard scales, thick fur, and tough leathery skin they all appeared on his arm in uneven patterns. Blood still continued to spurt from his previous wounds however.

Miroku made attempt to move his arm but to no avail, the nerves in his arm no longer responded to him but instead to _them._

He reached for the knife once more but it was faster, it snatched it away and then threw it deep into the forest. It was again that they spoke to him.

" _I'm afraid we can't let you do that, void bearer. You stole our bodies from us, and so you shall return us the favor. That is only the beginning of your debt."_

A rustle in the forest caused his head to jerk around, and there it was met with a pair of farmers jutting their heads out from the darkness with lanterns illuminating their faces. His heart fluttered for a moment, thinking he might have found someone to help him remove this arm from his body once and for all.

" _We had so hoped the first due would be that pretty little woman of yours, but we suppose this will have to suffice."_

It was then that he knew there was no salvation, not for him at the very least. His panic stricken eyes tried to warn them to run as fast as they could, the blood loss and trauma making him too weak to form the words coherently.

"Lord Monk! Are you all right? Kurou, go get the priestess he's been injured!" The shorter of the two began to turn around in a hurry, but he wasn't to get very far.

Faster than human eyes could register the monstrous arm pulled his being up and forward until he was standing in front of the departing man. Without a word the sharp claws slashed at his throat immediately shredding his jugular and windpipe.

The lifeless dropped with a resounding thud, and Miroku stared at the corpse with abject horror. There was nothing he could do to stop this, he'd left the hut with nothing but that knife on his person. The other man fell backwards to the ground and attempted to crawl away.

"Now where do you think you're going?" His mouth formed the words and his voice created them, but it was not his mind that was in control anymore.

Just as before the arm sprang forward but instead this time the hand wrapped tightly around his throat. While the man began to suffocate Miroku's left hand frantically beat and pulled at the other arm, desperate to at least spare this man's life. Within minutes the farmer stopped struggling, not long enough to be dead it was assumed he lost consciousness.

" _Eat."_

The voices commanded that single word, and his stomach turned at the idea. Even as he attempted to shift back his jaws began to throb, and with investigation by his own hand he felt several sharp fangs were now growing within his mouth.

" _Eat. Eat._ **Eat**." They continued to chide, and with each syllable his resistance faded. For the first time in his life the sound of eating flesh did not turn his stomach, instead he was beginning to feel excited at the prospect.

The monster arm tore through the unconscious man's chest muscles and breast bone to pull out the still beating heart. His mouth salivated before hungrily sinking his newly developed fangs into the pulsing muscles. With each ingestion some energy surged through his body and he began to feel stronger, **much stronger**.

He'd come to understand this day that a curse does not merely end when the granter has departed. A curse ends when it is given what it was once promised, and that promise was death.


End file.
